


Solas: Centuries

by halla_lavellan



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heartbreak, Loss, Not A Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 05:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9584927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halla_lavellan/pseuds/halla_lavellan
Summary: This is a story of loss. Lost time, lost love, lost words, lost memories.It begins when Solas leaves and ends long after everyone he knew has died.This was written as an impromptu compilation on Tumblr between myself and others (@roguelioness, @galadrieljones, and @meridyn-da).





	

She keeps each of his notes tucked away carefully in a worn, weathered journal, and each night before she goes to bed, she struggles to untie the bindings with her arm, but she succeeds. She takes each of the notes - the handwriting faded slightly, the parchment stained with tears - and reads them once more, trying vainly to take the words they contain and use them to plug the gaping hole in her chest where her heart used to be.  _Have I mentioned how endearing you look when your eyes narrow in concentration, ma lath? You distract me from my readings, vhenan._

He has her notes, too. And when he lies on his bedroll in the middle of the forest, an inky black sky speckled with glittering stars spread out over him, he takes them out, and reads them.  _I would say I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoy your company, vhenan, but that would be a lie. Ar lath ma._

* * *

Six months after he leaves, she is tidying her room and moving furniture. She needs to keep her mind occupied, or she slips too easily into old memories. She finds a dusty book that fell behind the bed some time ago. She picks it up and a new note falls out.

_I am sorry that I could not stay this morning, but I have work that must be done. Read this passage - pay particular attention to the last part. I would be interested to hear your thoughts._

_For now, I will simply say that you look so beautiful when you sleep, vhenan._

* * *

Time passes, and Cole finds her in the garden, kneeling next to a rosebush that Solas had planted so very long ago. She is breathing hard from the great effort of holding back sobs.

He crouches down next to her and briefly touches her shoulder to let her know that he is there. She turns her face to him and her lip wobbles. She shows him what she is holding - it is one of the old letters. It has split down the middle from being folded and read so many times.

“It’s one of the only things I had left,” she says, and tears begin to spill, heavy rainfall on her cheeks.

Cole says nothing, for there is nothing to be said. He sits more solidly upon the ground and takes her hand. They sit in silence together, remembering.

* * *

That night, as she sleeps, Cole finds her in the Fade.

“I thought of something,” he says to her from beneath the wide, dark brim of his hat. He is perched on a low tree branch.

She is barefoot, standing in a stream they used to know. “Tell me,” she says.

“He dries his letters in the sun each morning, because otherwise they’d fall apart,” he says. “The tears feel like breathing on his cheeks, but really, they’re pearls. He wishes he could see you.”

She sits down to draw shapes in the water that don’t stick.

* * *

She doesn’t show her grief to her friends, but Dorian knows. He sees behind the facade she wears, and there’s a pang in his heart each time he sees her raise her hand to her face, seeking out lines that no longer exist.

When she can’t sleep for the nightmares that plague her, he’s the one by her side, softly murmuring not-quite-words to calm her, cradling her head close to his chest and letting his shirt soak through with her tears.

He stumbles across her fast asleep in the middle of the notes one day. She’s been valiantly trying to patch them together, to keep them whole, but he can see from the way the ink has smudged that her emotions haven’t allowed her to preserve the one thing she has left of the man she loves. Though he despises Solas for what he did to her, Dorian can understand her need to preserve memories.

So he painstakingly enchants them, one after the other, so that the words will never again fade, that the parchment will never again tear. And when she wakes up, she finds them neatly stacked up in a pile next to her journal, with another, newer note.  _I love you, my friend. I’m here for you._

* * *

 _Solas, I see parallels between their situation and what we’ll have to consider when we arrive at Halamshiral. If you have any additional insights before we arrive, I’d appreciate them._  
  
_I’d also simply appreciate your company. We get so little time to ourselves._  
  
_When each day could be my last, and the trial is so unfathomably large, every moment of peace with you is more precious than the one that came before._  
  
Solas no longer has the notes with him. They are too fragile to travel. The trial is indeed unfathomably large, and there will be no more still moments of peace. But the state of the paper is of no consequence.  
  
He memorized every one of her words long ago.

* * *

So many years have passed, now.

The rosebush died long ago, and Skyhold stands empty.

Only a few still remember the fighting that happened there.

The wolf stands on the mountain. Now, the world is as he made it. New life is beginning, while the old fades.

He can’t remember, anymore, when he stopped visiting her in dreams. For what seemed like aeons, he recited her letters every night, long after the papers had crumbled into dust. Some days he forgets the order of the words. Other days he thinks that he can no longer remember what she looked like.

Sometimes, he wakes thinking he could touch her. That she was there before him, skin dripping in moonlight, blood-writing melting away in the blue glow of his spell. The last time that everything could have gone right.

She is gone, now, and everything is empty. His memories continue to slip away, like dead rose petals on the wind.


End file.
